Tuesday, September 30, 2008

People think its hard getting into Grad school - dealing with GRE, applying, purposing and all that muck; they should try getting out.

(Is this the part where I apologize for not blogging as often as I should have? Later? OK.)

So in these three weeks, I have

- been tortured by the fact that I am a G4 status graduate student. It is the most annoying/senseless status assigment I've ever come across. So the way this "works" is, if you have completed 24 credits and are currently taking 9 credits per semester, you are G4 status. If you are still doing those 24 credits, then you are G3. You can graduate when you are in G3 but not when you are in G4 (with a Masters, that is). Technically, the more credits I have, the more I must have to graduate (I need 56 for a Phd :|).

- gotten addicted to Ma No Pa. When I am with company that might not appreciate the brilliance of U Shrinivas, I wait till they leave. I pray that they leave soon so that I can listen to Zakir's and Selvaganesh's rhythmic geniuses. And the minute they step out of the car, I quickly direct my quivering hands to turn on the stereo and thank McLaughlin for making this happen. All of my labmates have had to yell to get my attention because I had it full blast on my iPod. (I'm totally iEverything since the arrival of my Macbook).

- been told that I am having too much fun at work: "You have to enjoy working, not enjoy at work." Thanks Eugene. You Jewish Chinaman, you.

- wondered what'd happen if I didn't know Science. Since nothing is happening when I know it, I guess nothing would happen if I didn't know it.

- signed up for Facebook and regretted it almost immediately.

- had someone change the gear on my car to neutral accidentally when I was waiting at a traffic light. When it turned green, there was some serious honking and I practically stood on the pedal to get the damn machine moving. Then everyone behind me started going around my car, one profanity per car being hurled at me until I realized the car was in neutral.

- gazed longingly at this amazing tweed coat for an embarassing length of time and for the umpteenth time wished there was as much money in science as there is in computers/finance. :( But Wall Street is so hahaha now that I am actually happy for science.

- been asked by someone to write a blog or else to stop changing my status on GTalk. :P

(I suppose this gives me clearance to change my status)

- realized that if either of these men were single, then all my problems would come to an end instantly.

(Is now OK? No? Fine.)

Though I've been told a gazillion times that I am actually less busy than I project myself to be, this time I really was busy. Really. Pinky swear.

Saturday, September 6, 2008

So I use Yahoo! Messenger. And actually used to prefer it over Gtalk for a lot of reasons.

a) The emoticon range.

b) The invisiblity mode.

c) Categorizing friends.

d) Webcam usage.

and so on.

Recently, Gtalk caught up with a and b (though my mom keeps asking me why I put a blue colored colon and bracket after some line), while c and d still remain to be solved. Now I use both programs. About a month back a friend told me one could find out if someone is invisible in yagoo! (the way I say it, becaas of the saauth yinndian aakksent you knoo vaa?) here. And I use it from time to time to detect friends who I need to talk to ASAP(Gossip must spread like wildfire, do you know what the speed of wildfire is? Do you?!), or to check if my best friend is hiding from me(his fiance really hates me :D) etc.

So one fine day in my pathetic grad life, I was sitting around lazing in my post-doc free office, contemplating stealing the Jap's coffee powder to make some stimulant that could get me to work. I was as usual signed into every messenger installed on my laptop (READ: lifeline). I stealthily closed the door to the office and in true grad student fashion, I stole coffee powder (Hideyuki, if you are reading this, I am sorry and I'll make more competent cells to make up for it) and made the beverage (potability: average). Finally when some neurons in the corner of my grad mind were jerking awake and cursing me for the untimely stimulation, the strangest thing happened on my laptop screen. In quick succession, three people BUZZed me on yagoo!, none of who I knew. I ignored the first two.

The third one was persistant and BUZZed me three times. I was getting curious about how these guys chose random ids so I engaged in the following conversation.

george_williams95 (9/4/2008 6:31:10 PM): i found it from persiangap.com

george_williams95 (9/4/2008 6:31:15 PM): i found it from www.persiangap.com

george_williams95 (9/4/2008 6:31:29 PM): is that ur pic in avatar?

Deepu (9/4/2008 6:32:02 PM): persiangap?

Deepu (9/4/2008 6:32:06 PM): i have never heard of the site

Deepu (9/4/2008 6:32:12 PM): i cant see how oyu foiund my id there

Deepu (9/4/2008 6:32:21 PM): *you

george_williams95 (9/4/2008 6:32:22 PM): just check it urself u can find out

Deepu (9/4/2008 6:32:32 PM): never mind

Deepu (9/4/2008 6:32:37 PM): i think we're done in this conversation

Deepu (9/4/2008 6:32:39 PM): good bye

george_williams95 (9/4/2008 6:32:44 PM): ur pic appeared there

george_williams95 (9/4/2008 6:32:52 PM): i liked it so i added u up

Deepu (9/4/2008 6:33:22 PM): i am sorry, but that doesn't help at all. i refrain from adding people i actually know .

george_williams95 (9/4/2008 6:33:35 PM): ahh its okey no probs

george_williams95 (9/4/2008 6:33:41 PM): may i know ur asl pls

Deepu (9/4/2008 6:34:06 PM): what is asl

george_williams95 (9/4/2008 6:34:16 PM): hmm age,sex,loc

Deepu (9/4/2008 6:34:43 PM): i see no need to share that information with you

george_williams95 (9/4/2008 6:34:51 PM): ahh okey

george_williams95 (9/4/2008 6:34:54 PM): bye

Deepu (9/4/2008 6:34:55 PM): bye

george_williams95 (9/4/2008 6:35:01 PM): #:-S

(I do find it stupid that I didn't know what asl was. I remember knowing it at some point of time in my life :|)

So after the "Flight engineer" explained, I went to the website. I really don't know how it functions, this invisibility finder. My surmise is that it is a cousin of the one I use. Every time someone uses their website, the profile of the person whose status they are checking is flashed. So someone was checking if I was online. And the irony is that I was not even invisible. :| Nonetheless, I think it would do us a lot of good to keep away from such website and let invisible people be. I take an oath to never use an uncloaking site again (except for detecting best friends with cuckoo fiancees and co-mongers). Amen.

On a totally different note using an entirely different music scale, a junior of mine got married (!!) and I was looking at her wedding pictures. One of their well-wishers (literally) had the following to say,